Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Slow-Rize Pizza Dough

I got this recipe below from the website http://mykitchencafe.blogspot.com/. I love it. I am just going to put her recipe in quotes. It is her writing not me! She suggests making it the night before. It is best for the dough to rise 24 hours in the refrigerator. It is super easy to make and very good. She also has a recipe for pizza sauce. I will post it too.

"The beauty about making this recipe the night before is you can just throw all the ingredients together cold (no warming the water) and stick it covered in the refrigerator. That is all I do - mix the dough to the desired consistency (I like my dough pretty soft) and really try not to overflour it and then place it in a greased bowl covered with saran wrap in the refrigerator. Be sure to take it out of the refrigerator a few hours before you make the pizza so the dough has time to warm and relax. This recipe makes 2 medium-sized pizzas. (It feeds our family of two adults and two children and we eat a lot of pizza.)

Directions for baking pizza:Preheat oven to 475 degrees. (If using a pizza stone, let stone heat for at least 30 minutes in the oven before baking pizza.) If baking in a sheet pan, press dough onto sheet pan and top with sauce and toppings. Bake for about 12 minutes (checking often) until crust is browned and cheese is golden and bubbly. If baking on the preheated pizza stone, slide pizza onto stone and bake for about 8 minutes. Makes 1 large pizza.

Trade Secrets: Here are a few things I swear by when making homemade pizza:1) use a baking stone if at all possible (and a pizza paddle works wonders - I just have a really cheap wood one and it works great for sliding the pizza in and out) - it really produces better pizza than using a metal pan - but if you don't have a stone and are using a metal pan, still cook the pizza at a high temperature (maybe 25-50 degrees less than if using a stone)2) about 45 minutes before making the pizza, I stick my pizza stone in the oven and crank the oven up to 500 degrees and let the stone get nice and piping hot - I bake the pizzas at either 475 or 500 degrees, depending on how thick I am doing the crust that night (higher temp for thinner crust)3) finally, I never use pre-grated cheese. As I mentioned in an earlier post, most pre-grated cheese is coated with a substance that prevents it from clumping, but it also prevents it melting into yummy gooey-ness like cheese you grate yourself (I always use mozzarella for pizza)."